Scratches and streaks on machine-processed film ...

[dmr]

I'm taking the liberty of starting a new thread with this one, this is kind of a spin-off of the film retriever thread, but I just thought of something ...

Retrievers are often sold with 35mm film home development kits,
but don't be tempted to remove the exposed film from the cartridge
with one of these - use a bottle opener to break it open instead.

Each pass of the film through the felt light baffle material on the
cartridge increases the chance of scratches on the negatives.

I just realized something -- I don't know how significant, but a habit that I am about to change, and I don't know why I haven't realized this before.

Not often, but occasionally I'll get film back and complain about streaks and scratches. I've always blamed this on lack of care in the mini-labs.

However, more often than not when I finish a roll of film, I'll just toss it in my purse where it sinks to the bottom, sometimes in the center console thing of the car, where it also sinks to the bottom. For some reason, I'm not in the habit of returning exposed film to those little plastic containers, a habit I am about to change. Both of those places do have various detritus and drek, crumbs and grains of various types and such. I'm just wondering if that's been responsible for infrequent but occasional scratches and streaks, in particular one streak of some substance a couple months ago which did come off with a cotton ball and H2O.

Hmmmmm .... If a grain of something did get trapped in the felt, yes, it could scratch when they pulled the film out to put it in the processor ...

 

[MinorTones]

I used to work in one of those one-hour-photo joints. For two months I was the only one who did densitometry tests, which were incredibly basic, on the test strips each morning. After two months I found something better to do, but in that time I learned there was a lot of substandard work going on at this particular lab.

Recently at a local shop i developed three rolls of fuji 400 press. Each had scratches on the emulsion side of the film. I'm guessing it is because some unwanted junk got into the felt of the casing, as you describe, or the rollers the 35mm film goes over in the one hour machines had some debris which scratched each roll in a similar pattern.

Just one work experience and three rolls of film though... take it with a grain of salt.

 

[nomade]

Yeah i would just throw the exposed film in my back, or under the bed, or anywhere till i give it to the lab guy, i didn't notice that this would cause any harm..

 

[Pherdinand]

i had this sometimes, i was not sure that it's not my old cameras that produce it, until i got it on a roll from my minolta slr i bought brand new... always in the same lab...so i've told them there might be a problem. they thanked for it and the next roll came back with the same type of scratches here-and-there. I switched to another lab since. No more problems.

But I do use the white canisters when the film is done.

 

[Nikon Bob]

It is probably a good idea to put exposed film back into a canister because the felt light baffle is also a dirt/debris trap. It is not the only place for dirt to collect and scratch your film but it is one place that you have control over. Everything you can do to eliminate sources of scratches is good.

Bob

 

[ywenz]

are you seeing scratch on the actual negative, or only after you scann them in?

 

[dmr]

are you seeing scratch on the actual negative, or only after you scann them in?

This really doesn't occur that often, but I'm referring to scratches or smears on the negatives.

The one case I'm referring to is when I took a roll to Wally World in Las Vegas and it came back with a white horizontal streak in the scans. I was sure it was bad handling in the lab. 🙁 When I looked at the negative it definitely was not a scratch, but what looked like a very fine line from a felt marker on the non-emulsion side of the film. It came off with H2O and a cotton ball.

I'm thinking now that it was more likely something like a crumb from an eye pencil in the bottom of my purse (which I cleaned out this morning) that got stuck in the light trap.

I'm going to start making it a habit to keep exposed rolls in the little plastic canister things until I take them in.

 

[Byuphoto]

every once in awhile I get negatives back that have a streak acroos them that looks like it was made with a red hiliter. It will not come off and there is not enough consistancy for me to fiure out why. Many different cameras, film and two different developers. The only consistent thing is it is always across the bottom third